Thursday, May 20, 2004

Star Wars: Episode III Proposal

"Maybe the best thing to do would be to get Anakin to embrace the Dark Side as quickly as possible, perhaps by forcing him to confront some terrible disappointment that will haunt him for the rest of his days. We suggest this two-line scene set in a Coruscant restaurant:

Anakin puts on his black helmet and storms off to his local county clerk’s office and fills out the paperwork to have his name legally changed to 'Darth Annie Vader.' (He later quietly drops the middle name, realizing it doesn’t help his macho image.) And then for the next two hours, it’s all special-effects spaceship battles, which is the real reason most of us will go to the theater anyway. Fade to black."

Sadly, it's far too late to fire anyone. The movie (probably titled "Birth of the Empire," btw) is mostly done. I wonder what Lucas thinks of the Lord of Rings films. Do you think he saw them and was like, "Wow, Fellowship of the Ring is almost as good as Phantom Menace!" Or do you think he realized that they upped the ante a bit? Not that Battleship Earth wouldn't have upped the ante for the Phantom Menace too.

Despite being secluded on that ranch much of the time, he does watch other movies. Plus, Trey Parker told him Phantom Menace sucked. So I think he knows, but he has this attitude like "hey, everybody told me the original sucked too, and then I made a quadrillion dollars." Well George, this time everyone is right.